When the doorbell rang on Friday evening, Anthea was the last person Ali was expecting to see when she opened the door.
‘Hi Ali.’ Anthea’s smile was as bright as ever. ‘Now it’s my turn to apologise for dropping in. Could we have a chat?’
‘Of course.’ Ali stepped back and motioned for her to enter. ‘Would you like a drink?’
Anthea smiled over her shoulder. ‘Tea would be lovely, thanks.’
There was an awkward silence between them as Ali made the tea. Despite the years they’d known one another, they hadn’t spent much time one on one.
‘You look good, Ali,’ Anthea said. ‘Is everything going well?’
Ali smiled. ‘Yes, thank you. Very well, against all odds.’ She handed Anthea a steaming mug of tea. ‘You look great too. I was so glad to hear you’re in remission.’
‘Thanks. It looks like I might’ve dodged a bullet. For now, anyway.’ She shrugged. ‘In the meantime, I’m just grateful for everything I’ve got.’
They sipped their tea in silence, still standing on either side of the bench. Anthea eyed Ali over the rim of her cup.
‘Look, I don’t know exactly what happened between you and Tom,’ she said. ‘But I do know that—’
‘Did he tell you he went home with another woman the night before he came back?’ Ali interrupted.
Surprise crossed Anthea’s face, followed by disappointment. She shook her head. ‘No. He didn’t tell us that. But do you really think it would’ve happened if he’d known you were pregnant? If he’d thought there was any chance of you getting back together? You were separated, living in different cities. You can’t blame him for thinking it was over.’
Her words were gentle, but they were pinpricks on Ali’s conscience.
‘I can’t stop thinking about it.’ She clenched her fists, trying to hold back the tears. ‘I know I’ve got no right to be angry, but after everything it just… it hurts.’
Anthea reached across the bench and placed her hand over Ali’s. Ali had never been the touchy-feely type; she’d always hugged that invisible armour close around her, protecting her from feeling too keenly. But the armour had only ever been an illusion, and beneath it she was raw and weeping. She clutched at Anthea’s hand and gripped it tightly.
‘I understand if it’s too much for you to accept him back right now,’ Anthea said. ‘But I know that Tom loves you, and I’m pretty sure you feel the same way. You probably think I’m a silly romantic, but I believe that each of us has one other person out there, the other half of our hearts. Not everyone is lucky enough to find that person like you and Tom have. Are you sure you want to let that go?’ Anthea’s gaze flicked up to the portrait of Elizabeth on the wall. Her voice quivered when she spoke again. ‘You’ve been through so much together already.’
Ali breathed in, held it, then let it out shakily. ‘I used to have this unfailing confidence in myself. I had the perfect man, a great job, nice house in the inner suburbs, and I thought I deserved it all. I thought I was better than other people. But with the first real problem that happened to us, I fell apart. Everything I thought I was… It was just a veneer. And underneath, I’m this cold, emotionally stunted thing who has no idea how to be a human. I don’t deserve Tom.’ Her mouth turned down as she struggled to hold back the tidal wave that threatened to wash her away.
Understanding dawned on Anthea’s face. ‘Oh, Ali. Don’t you know how much I admire you? You’re not cold… you’re fiery, you’re passionate. When you walk into a room, it comes alive. You go after what you want because you believe in it. That’s what Tom sees. That’s what everyone sees.’
Tears dripped from Ali’s eyes onto the bench between them. She didn’t trust herself to speak.
‘If you decide to do this on your own, I know you’ll be the strongest, most amazing single mother who ever walked the earth,’ Anthea went on. ‘And we’ll be here for you whenever you need us. But before you make that decision, be sure that you’re not making it to punish yourself. It’s OK to need people, Ali. It doesn’t make you weak; it just makes you human. You deserve love as much as anyone else does.’
Ali squeezed Anthea’s hand. ‘Fucking hell, Anthea, you really are an angel.’ They both laughed, and the tension in the room dissolved. ‘Thank you. Really.’
Then the doorbell rang once again, and Ali frowned. No one ever just dropped in anymore. Two in one night was inconceivable.
‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ she said to Anthea.
Her footsteps sounded hollow on the floating floorboards as she approached the door. Somehow she knew it would be him even before she opened the door, but she was unprepared for the frenzy of emotions that hit her at the sight of Tom standing on the doorstep. He didn’t have a bag. His arms hung by his sides. He looked almost destitute.
She wanted to throw herself into his arms and hold onto him so he could never leave again.
She wanted to thrust him from her, hammer her fists against his chest, against all the parts of him that woman had touched.
‘I resigned today,’ he said.
She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to slam the door in his face.
Light footsteps crept up behind her and Anthea’s voice was soft by her left shoulder. ‘Hello Tom,’ she said. ‘I’ll give you two some space.’
She took Ali’s hand, then Tom’s, and squeezed them both.
‘Thanks for coming,’ Tom said to her. ‘It means a lot.’
Ali raised a hand in farewell. Neither of them spoke until Anthea’s car had disappeared up the street. Ali’s defences reared up once again and she crossed her arms in front of her chest. ‘You asked her to check up on me?’
‘Not to check up on you. To make sure you were OK.’ His brow was creased with concern. ‘I was worried about you.’
Ali hugged herself tighter. ‘I’m still on the wagon, Tom, so if that’s all you’re here for, you may as well go back to Sydney.’
‘I’m not here for that. I’m here because this is my home. You’re my home.’
‘That’s awfully presumptuous of you.’
‘Since the day I met you, you’re the only one I’ve wanted to be with,’ Tom said. ‘For three months, you lied to me. For three months, you carried our child, and every day you lied to me about it. I’m not defending what I did—I wish to hell I’d made a different choice. But that day, after weeks of talking to you almost every day, I asked you to come and visit me in Sydney, and you shut me down with no explanation. How could I have known it was because you were pregnant? I thought we were finished. And yeah, the jealous, paranoid dickhead in me thought you were seeing someone else, and I wanted revenge. I didn’t sleep with her, but there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t wish I’d gone home instead and talked to you like a rational, mature adult. But I didn’t. And I can’t take it back. All I can do is say I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Ali.’
Ali uncrossed her arms, then crossed them again. ‘I’m sorry too. I should never have kept it from you in the first place. It just… it got out of hand and then I didn’t know how to undo it.’
Tom’s face was naked, vulnerable. ‘So let’s rewind the last few weeks, try again.’
The gulf yawned between them. All she had to do was leap and she could be back in his arms again. But still she hung back. ‘I don’t even know who I am anymore. I don’t know if we can go back to the way it was before.’
Tom stepped closer. ‘We can’t go back. We can only go forward. You’re part of me. You’re in my system. I love you. And I love this baby.’
He took another step forward and rested a tentative hand on the swell of her belly. All of Ali’s instincts told her to steel herself against his touch, to draw back, as she’d been trying to do from the baby inside her ever since she’d learnt of its existence. But her skin buzzed where he touched her, and the invisible thread that had always been between them, the one she’d hacked away at until it was frayed and thin, began to braid together again. She moved her hand down to cover h
is, and the warmth of him flowed through her.
‘What if we lose this one too?’ she whispered.
‘Then we’ll hold each other up.’ Tom raised his other hand to her cheek. Ali closed her eyes at the gentleness of his fingers on her skin. ‘It’s you I want. I’d rather be with you and never have a baby than live the rest of my life without you.’
Her heart swelled inside her. She’d tried so hard to close it down, to shut him out, to drive him away, but now the thread tugged at her, pulled her towards him. She wanted so badly to let go, to let him back in, to be home again. All she had to do was leap.
She took a slow, deep breath, then stepped into him, buried her head in his chest, wrapped her arms around his middle. His body relaxed against hers in a shuddering sigh of relief. They held each other for a long time until Ali finally looked up into her husband’s eyes.
‘You’d better come inside.’
What came after
The midwife peered around the throng of people gathered in the hospital room. ‘Hi everyone! Hi Alison, I’m Jodie and I’ll be looking after you this afternoon and evening. Is it OK if I take your obs now?’
Ali nodded and sat down on the edge of the bed, holding her arm out for the blood pressure cuff. Jodie glanced over to where Kayla was cradling the baby in her arms. ‘Is she your first?’
Tom looked over at Ali, and their eyes met. A range of emotions twisted around one another. This would be a question they would face again and again, and it would never get any easier to answer. It felt wrong not to acknowledge Elizabeth’s existence, but to bring up the circumstances with a stranger wasn’t exactly light social conversation either. But she had existed. There was already so much silence around stillbirth, and Ali didn’t want to be part of that silence anymore.
‘No,’ she said. ‘She’s our second daughter.’
‘Oh, wonderful.’ Jodie turned her attention back to taking Ali’s blood pressure and temperature. ‘I’ll come back in a few hours, but give me a buzz if you need anything.’ She left the room.
‘You forget how small they are when they’re new.’ Jason reached out a finger to stroke the baby’s forehead. ‘Almost makes you want another one, doesn’t it?’ He threw a furtive look at his wife.
‘Jason.’ Anthea was struggling not to smile. ‘We’re not having another baby. Besides,’ she flashed a grin at Ali, ‘now we’ve got little Emma to cuddle.’
‘I don’t know about you guys, but I’m definitely clucky,’ Kayla said. ‘She’s so beautiful, Ali. You’re so lucky.’
Tom came over to sit beside Ali on the bed, threading his fingers through hers. ‘We can’t wait to take her home tomorrow.’
‘Enjoy this while you can.’ Claudia gestured around the room with one hand, the other holding ten-month-old Alice on her hip. ‘People bringing you meals three times a day, the opportunity to lie down whenever you want, wearing your PJs all day long. You’ll miss all this when you get home, I guarantee it.’
Ali smiled through the tears that always seemed to be waiting behind her eyes. She was exhausted, and she’d been on an emotional roller-coaster ever since her milk had come in yesterday. Her heart was full to the brim with love, with gratitude, with wonder, and a bit of fear too. Emma’s arrival had shattered the control she’d always craved, and she was terrified at the prospect of perhaps never being able to regain it. The idea of being everything to this tiny person, being responsible for her life, her welfare, her happiness, was a bigger pressure than any she’d felt before. It was overwhelming and wonderful, though the anxiety that she might never be enough was always there, beneath the surface. But after what Anthea had said to her all those months ago, Ali was trying to accept that she wouldn’t always have the answers, and when she didn’t, there were people there to help her.
She’d never been alone. Her community—her family—had been there all along, but she’d lost sight of that after all that she’d lost, had convinced herself that she didn’t deserve them. She still struggled to make herself believe she was worthy of their love, but she had Tom, and now they had Emma, and Kayla, and Claudia, and Anthea and Jason. And—
‘Right, give me that baby!’ Hazel bustled into the room, dumping her bag on the floor and holding her arms out.
‘Yes ma’am!’ Kayla passed Emma gently over to Hazel, and the older woman took the baby into her arms and covered her tiny, scrunched-up face with kisses.
‘How’s my beautiful granddaughter?’ she murmured, her face tender in a way Ali remembered from her own childhood. A tear squeezed from her eye and rolled slowly down her cheek.
‘Looks like someone else is clucky, too,’ Kayla said.
Ali pretended to roll her eyes. ‘She’s hardly let her go since she was born. Anyone would think she was the one who pushed her out.’
‘Don’t get cheeky, young lady.’ Hazel waggled a finger at Ali. ‘You made me wait forty-one years for this, and I’m going to bloody well enjoy it.’
‘Good on you,’ Anthea said.
‘You’d better take advantage of it now, Hazel, because my parents are dropping in soon too, and they’ll be fighting you for her,’ Tom said.
Ali rested her head on Tom’s shoulder, and the invisible thread between them twisted, becoming stronger, surer. Together they watched their friends and family admiring their daughter, accepting her into their lives with unconditional love. Ali could already tell that being a parent wasn’t going to be a smooth ride, but she knew these people, her people, would be there for her when she stumbled, when she felt life slipping out of her control. Emma had transformed her into something new, something primal, something stronger, but it was her village that would give her the courage to be the person she needed to be.
Acknowledgements
The idea for this book came to me when I was going through my third miscarriage. Outside of dealing with the by now familiar sense of failure, I was preparing, once again, to hold it all inside and pretend everything was normal. And I’d had enough of it. I didn’t want to participate in the culture of silence that surrounds pregnancy and infant loss anymore.
The story poured out of me. I wrote and rewrote it through two pregnancies (I do not recommend researching stillbirth while pregnant). While it became something else in the process, the underlying theme was always of the damage that can be caused by not speaking openly about these losses.
So many people helped me to make this story what it is today.
My biggest, warmest thanks to Rebecca Muller and Janelle Smith—I am beyond honoured that you shared your stories with me from both the practical and emotional perspectives. Your insights helped me to make this story more authentic, and I hope it does justice to the memories of Claire and Jayden.
Thank you to my obstetrician, Mandy Nichols, both for keeping me sane through three pregnancies and for verifying the medical details and processes in the book. Thanks to Catherine Miller for helping me to honour the valuable work of the midwives at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, and Cheryl Mudge for providing insight into the role of a hospital social worker.
Thanks to Dawn Barker for your support for this book from its conception, for reading early drafts, for your medical insights and for helping me get the psychologist scenes right. And thanks for making me realise where the story really started!
Thanks to Rebekah Turner for reading the bloated second draft and for identifying some of the themes of the book when I still didn’t really know what I was trying to do with it.
Thanks to Irma Gold for selecting my memoir piece to be published in the anthology, The Sound of Silence: Journeys Through Miscarriage back in 2011. Your sensitive editing gave me the confidence and courage to take on a larger piece dealing with pregnancy loss.
Thanks to everyone at Pantera Press for your enthusiasm for this book. It’s the book I’ve always wanted to write, and I’m so grateful to be able to get it out into the world.
Thanks especially to my editor, Lucy Bell, you glorious unicorn, for always pus
hing me to do better, for championing my writing and for being there to bounce ideas off. You make the editing process so enjoyable, and your lovely comments in the margins keep me going through the hard slog.
To my three beautiful children—Finn, the sensitive one, Cael, the whirlwind, and Lata, the girl who shouldn’t have been possible but who nevertheless came—thanks for keeping my feet on the ground and for still astonishing me every day.
And thanks, as always, to George for your constant support and understanding and for coming up with the title of this book. And, of course, for not minding too much that I mined your Twitter scandal for my own purposes. You’re one of the good ones.
About Rebecca Freeborn
Rebecca Freeborn lives in the beautiful Adelaide Hills with a husband, three kids, a dog, a cat, a horse, more books than she can fit in her bookcase and an ever-diminishing wine collection.
She works as a communications and content editor for the South Australian Government where she screams into the void against passive voice and unnecessary capitalisation. She writes before the sun comes up and spends her moments of spare time reading novels and feminist articles and compulsively checking Facebook.
Rebecca is also the author of Hot Pursuit (2018). Misconception is her second novel.
If you are affected by any of the issues in Misconception, there are organisations who can offer help and support:
sands.org.au
24/7 National Support Line: 1300 072 637
stillbirthfoundation.org.au
blackdoginstitute.org.au
beyondblue.org.au
aa.org.au
First published in 2019 by Pantera Press Pty Limited
www.PanteraPress.com
This book is copyright, and all rights are reserved.
Text copyright © Rebecca Freeborn, 2019
Rebecca Freeborn has asserted her moral rights to be identified as the author of this work.
Design and typography copyright © Pantera Press Pty Limited, 2019
Misconception Page 28